Floristisch-soziologische Arbeitsgemeinschaft e. V. (FlorSoz), 2018
DOI: 10.14471/2018.38.008
Mountain vegetation is considered highly sensitive to changes in land use, especially grazing re-gime and forest management. The aim of this study was to assess shifts in plant species composition in the Western Tatra Mts over the past 92 years and to determine environmental drivers that have caused changes in species composition. We resurveyed 47 vegetation plots assigned to three differ-ent types of vegetation, which were originally sampled in 1922. For each plot we recorded all vascu-lar plant species, using the same methodology as in the original survey. For interpretation of the vegetation changes we used a set of ecological indicator values. The species composition of resampled grasslands was characterized by a higher proportion of nitrogen-demanding species on areas abandoned from livestock grazing. This reflects the higher susceptibility of grasslands located below natural treeline to changes in land use in comparison to those occurring on areas above the treeline, which may constitute a large threat to biological diversity of the Tatra Mts grasslands at the lower limit of their elevational range. Catastrophic windthrow constituted an important factor driving compositional dynamics in mountain spruce forests, creating a high diversity of microhabitats with suitable conditions for natural regeneration and development of the forest.